Word.ws English Dictionary

nonbelonging

nonbelonging noun: an absence of belonging; the state of not being (recognised as) a member of a community, etc.

Noun

nonbelonging (countable and uncountable, plural nonbelongings)

  1. An absence of belonging; the state of not being (recognised as) a member of a community, etc.
    • Terror is daily increasing and people are shot not only for agitation against the Soviet Government or for any other accusation; the nonbelonging to the Soviet service or relatives being abroad or the possibility of intending to join a new government are sufficient reasons for execution.1919, New York (State), Legislature, Assembly, Standing Committee on the Judiciary, Louis M. Martin, Louis Waldman, August Claessens, Samuel Aaron DeWitt, Samuel Orr, Charles Solomon, Exhibits, page...
    • They show us that temporary linguistic/cultural outsidedness, situated ethical nonbelongings, or located singular desires to belong "outside the divisiveness of categorizing" (Probyn, Outside 10) are conditions which nurture a transcultural imaginary and understanding.2015, Arianna Dagnino, Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility, page 172

Forms of nonbelonging

pluralnonbelongings
alternative formnon-belonging

Origin of nonbelonging

From non- + belonging. First use appears c. 1919. See cite below.

Questions about nonbelonging

What does nonbelonging mean?
Nonbelonging means an absence of belonging; the state of not being (recognised as) a member of a community, etc.
What part of speech is nonbelonging?
Nonbelonging is a noun.
What is the plural of nonbelonging?
The plural of nonbelonging is nonbelongings.

Words near nonbelonging in the dictionary

  1. nonbelieving
  2. nonbellicose
  3. nonbelligerency
  4. nonbelligerent
  5. nonbelligerents
  6. nonbelonging
  7. nonbelongings
  8. nonbenchmark
  9. nonbending
  10. nonbeneficial
  11. nonbeneficially

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nonbelonging (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “nonbelonging.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nonbelonging. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.